San Francisco: Claude Code, an artificial intelligence tool that can generate computer code when users type prompts, is going viral.
The tool, introduced in May by AI startup Anthropic, has shown record growth over the past two weeks without sharing data, the company said. Anthropic said people had time to try out the Claude code during the holidays, and users realized how capable it was.
Claude Code is one of several AI coding tools, including Base44 and Cursor, that are increasingly being used by people with no coding experience to build their own websites, programs, and apps, a trend known as “vibecoding.” People pay subscription fees ranging from 20 USD to 200 USD (RM79〜RM794) Depending on the features you need, Claude Code can take up to a month to use.
Here are five ways to use Claude code.
Sam Hindes, 38, Melbourne, Australia
Hindes, a vice principal at a school for children with autism who has four children under the age of nine, turned to AI to help his family organize their laundry.
Last week, he inspired Claude Coad to create a program that identifies the clothes of each of his three daughters, allowing him to sort clean laundry into piles without their help. He took photos of their clothes to tell Claude Cord which T-shirt belonged to which daughter. Now, all you have to do is hold your clothes up to your laptop’s camera and the program will tell you who it belongs to.
“The whole process was completed within an hour and the girls were really excited,” he said.
Hindes said she is currently building a program using Claude Code to help her daughters go through their morning routine independently, as if they were playing a game.
“I tried to teach myself coding at various points, but I never stuck with it,” he said.
Rob Stevenson, 51, New York
Stevenson, an art and architecture photographer, started using Claude Code in November to build a website for documentary features.
He said the website was created in about a day, includes an interactive map of New York City, and took photos and audio recordings to document life in each borough.
“Once the basic site was complete, the new features encouraged me and I started adding features I hadn’t thought of,” says Stephenson, who pays Claude Code US$20 (RM79) a month. “Light/dark mode? Easy. Shuffle button? Done.”
When Claude Code couldn’t solve a particular problem, he turned to Gemini, Google’s AI chatbot, to ask how to approach the problem.
“When we started the business a few years ago, we envisioned something like this and expected it to cost thousands of dollars to build,” he said.
Chris Roberts, 36, St. Louis
Assistant Attorney General Roberts used Claude code and a cursor in August to create a mobile app called AlertAssist that allows users to send mass text messages to their contacts in an emergency. After working in law enforcement, Roberts became interested in helping people act quickly and safely during emergencies.
The app’s design and user interface is “very basic, but it works,” he said.
Anne Haubo Dyhrberg, 35, Newark, Delaware.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, Haubo Dierberg, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Delaware, came up with the idea of creating a stock trading simulator for his classes. She turned to her husband, a software engineer, but “the work seemed too much work.”
On Monday, she downloaded the Claude code and within two hours had created a working demo of a trading simulator that students could use to trade securities in a simulated market. She constructed five different trading scenarios for students to explore different challenges in financial markets.
“I never thought it would be this easy,” she said. “The semester starts in two weeks and I can’t wait to test it out.”
Joe Bakas, 38, St. Louis
Last month, Bacus, who owns a welding and metal fabrication business, turned to Claude Code to create an AI assistant that manages his calendar and finds new business opportunities. Since the business is just him and three others, “we can’t afford an office team at this point,” Backus said. “It all depends on me.”
Using cloud code, we built a personal AI assistant that connects to your calendar, Google Sheets, and Gmail account, so you can easily create quotes, track work progress, and organize contracts.
“I’m a skilled worker who barely graduated from high school in the early 2000s,” Bacus said, adding, “But over the past few months, I’ve been teaching myself how to build real tools for my business.” – ©2026 The New York Times Company
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
